Nicola Piovani

Direction

Pianist, conductor and composer Nicola Piovani was born 1946 in Rome, where he has lived and worked ever since.

Much of Nicola Piovani’s work has been dedicated to film and to theatre. His first soundtrack dates back to 1968. It was written to accompany documentary footage of the student movements connected to the faculty of Philosophy where he was a student. The footage was made by a students’ collective under the direction of Silvano Agosti.

Piovani’s debut in full length soundtrack was to take place the following year with “NP il segreto” by Silvano Agosti.

After NP, Nicola began a career which led him to write scores for more than150 films, and to collaborate with directors such as Bellocchio, Monicelli, Taviani brothers, Moretti, Loy, Tornatore, Benigni, Fellini, Jos Stelling, John Irvin, Sergej Bodrov, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Philippe Lioret, Danièle Thompson, Xavier Durringer.

He won an Oscar for the soundtrack for Roberto Benigni’s “La vita è bella”. He has also received various Italian Awards: three David di Donatello, four Colonna Sonora, three Nastri d’Argento and two Ciak d’oro. In France, he was nominated twice for the Cesar Awards; at the “Musique et Cinema Festival” of Auxerre he received an Award from the Public and a Special Mention by the Judges.

The most recent piece of film music written by Piovani, recorded in December 2010, was for a French film called “ La conquete” by Xavier Durringer, which charts the rise to power of Nicolas Sarkozy.